What HR Departments Can Learn From Hollywood

ROSABETH MOSS KANTER: HR should get into show business. If talent is key to company success, then HR professionals should take cues from Broadway, Hollywood and Bollywood.

After all, HR people are casting managers, looking for the best people and best fit, in order to give audiences the best experience—a core Disney premise. HR departments can be set and costume designers, creating a great work environment that’s disciplined but also fun. They are production directors, making sure that everyone works together well. They reward star performers. They should redefine career paths to be more like the Hollywood model, with fewer fixed jobs and more temporary teams. They increasingly live in flexible project-based organizations, in which teams are brought together to create a “show” and then disband and re-form for another one.
HR departments have always been a little schizophrenic. There’s the side that is part of finance and administration—counting heads, managing the payroll, processing entries and exits. And there’s another part that should be allied with marketing and sales—selling the company to prospective and actual employees, and through culture-building or organization development, ensuring that employees help sell its virtues to customers. I think computers can handle the routine tasks on the administration side. I’d like to see the marketing side of HR get more emphasis. HR should be at the center of developing community-service projects that motivate employees while they improve the world. And they should give line managers the tools and training to put on the best possible shows for customers.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter (@RosabethKanter) holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle professorship at Harvard Business School, where she specializes in strategy, innovation and leadership for change.